Next weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic will be the worst, UK chief medical adviser says

Chief Medical Officer for England Whitty is seen outside Downing Street

LONDON (Reuters) - The next few weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic will be the worst as the new highly infectious variants of the virus rampage across the country, the British government’s chief medical adviser said on Monday.

"The next few weeks are going to be the worst weeks of this pandemic in terms of numbers into the NHS (National Health Service)," Chris Whitty told BBC TV. "What we need to do before the vaccines have had their effect, because it will take several weeks before that happens, we need to really double down."

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and William Schomberg; editing by Michael Holden)